Hello world!

photo by John Sharp

I am
I collect
I track
I love

Those four words characterize my professional life. They also characterize me personally…

I am… a licensed tour guide and tour leader.
And as such I have a wide range of qualifications and quite a collection of licenses.

Among them are the ones to guide in and around Gdansk, as well as Torun.

I am also licensed to guide and lead tours in and around the two northern provinces of Poland – the Pomeranian and Warmia-Mazury.

I also have licenses to guide in and around the Castle Museum in Malbork and Nicolaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork etc… I am also a licensed tour leader, and have powers to teach new guides.

I collect… bricks.
Gothic bricks, as I specialize in the times of Prussia Teutonic and Ducal as well as Royal. I collect bricks, because they can tell a story and can make the walls reveal their secrets.

I track… Tutivillus, which is not the easiest task, but is a guarantee of an adventure.  As for Tutivillus – I wrote about him  elsewhere in this blog….

I love… what I am doing.
Quitting office work some years ago, and devoting my life to guiding, I gained a privilege of setting off to work with pleasure.  Besides I train new guides, I teach how to read walls, paintings, symbols. I make the places I guide around – special. I investigate family genealogies, I write a little, I paint, and most of all – I take a lot of pictures.

And privately?

Privately I am a happy person, as I am doing what I love …

One day off…

I love my work, but finally I became eager to get a day off. I wanted to share it with my family

And I did.

After a splendid (royal – both in form and service) breakfast at the Gothic Cafe in Malbork Castle - we went for a drive into the heart of the LowLands…

We drove through Klecie (Klettendorf ), and then Kławki (Klakendorf) – where we saw the ruin of the once marvelous half-timbered porched house. It is outrageous and shamefull to everyone who cares (except of course the authorities, who are always self satisfied and in an excellent mood…). We stopped in Szaleniec (Tchőrichthof), where the Mennonite cemetery is sinking in high grass, and our next stop was Stalewo (Stalle) – the birthplace of eng. Eduard Wiebe (the maker of Gdansk’s sewage system) to admire the splendid half-timbered house built in 1751 by Georg Poeck; in vain we tried to find the protestant cemetery (another shame to the locals). Afterwards we drove through Zwierzno (Thiergart) – a village, like many other, founded by the Teutons in mid 14^th century.

Markusy (Markushoff) welcomed us with some village Sunday rush. I shall always remember my first visit to this rather sleepy village – tracing the history of the Kroeker family. The history of Markushoff is very interesting: it was (as most of the villages here) founded by the Teutons in mid 14^th century, and there was a mansion with a chapel here. In the late 16^th century an agreement with Simon Bahr (a wealthy Gdansk burgher) was concluded, allowing him to settle the Dutch people. The Mennonites living in Markushoff belonged to the Frisian congregation of Jezioro (Thiensdorf). In 1791 a split in the congregation occurred – and it resulted in rise of an independent congregation with own house of worship. The congreagations united in 1888, and took the name Thiensdorf-Markushoff. Among the most popular Mennonite names here – were: Allert, Bastvader, Boll, Dau, Froes, Froese, Land, Harms, Holtzrichter, Jantzen, Lambert, Martens, Neysteter, Nickel, Pulse, Penner, Peters, Philipsen, Quiring, Ridiger, Schroetter, Siebert; In 1885, the village had 54 households, there were five large farms, 76 houses, inhabited by 689 Protestants and Catholics and 139 Mennonites (according to holland.org.pl).

Maybe they were not numerous here – but it is worth remembering what a great influence they had on the whole land ! Those words are especially worth reading by those in Poland – who not knowing the history of this land – are nowadays strongly rejecting the Mennonite impact on this land.

Coming back to our today’s trip – we drove through Żółwiniec (Wengelnwalde) which was founded only in the late 17^th century by the Mennonites.

And then we finally stopped for a while in Raczki Elbląskie (Unterkerbswalde). It is famous today for being the lowest natural depression in Poland (-1,8 m). But in the medieval times the area of today’s Raczki was a forest – which belonged to the Teutonic castle in Elbing. Today the village is losing its historical character very quickly, and has nothing to offer, besides the land mark of the depressed land.

Emerging from the depression – we drove to the cemetery in Różewo (Rosenort)… The village was founded by the Dutch settlers in the late 16th century. And was one of the most important religious centers in the LowLands and exerted great influence on the lives of other centers and communities. In 1754 a first Mennonite church in the Vistula LowLands was built here. Today this cemetery – as most of the non-catholic ones – is in sad ruin.

However there is a group of young people (locals) who – wanting to repair what was destroyed by the new settlers after 1945 – are now trying to restore what still remains and what still can be restored. In many places they are doing a marvelous job (without any financement!).

As we did not have enough time to see everything we wanted – therefore I shall need another day off

Here is a GALLERY of photograhs I took enroute

Yesterday …

Yesterday again I guided in my favorite dress. The city was sunny, people joyful, and only the wind was trying to find out what does the dress construction look like Having two hands only, it was in moments quite a challenge, to walk, talk, hold the hat, and save the dress from wrapping around my head  :)))

The beauty of May on the Lakes and the Canal :)

I sailed today

The Oberland Canal (the inclined planes) is undergoing some very needed maintenance works, so the sail was a real sail… No riding the boat today

But – Oh My!!

What views there were!

For me it was not new – as far as the route is concerned. I sailed it once in my lifetime – the whole Canal route – with my Dad.

Years ago…

For five days.

And they were wonderful five days.

So today I took the photos even more eagerly – trying to hear the distant long faded voice of my Dad saying: “row, girl row, I want to feel the wind in my hair” (especially that he did not have too much hair to feel the wind in )

Today the day was perfect – sun, and a delicate wind, birds waking up after a long and gloomy winter. The water in places was still, like a mirror

HERE are some photos I took on the way from Małdyty to Miłomłyn.

I may say – I launched my internal batteries

Elbląg / Elbing – some thoughts in the early afternoon…

I have just returned from Elbląg.

Nothing surprising, as I visit this town quite often with a great pleasure. Today I went to the guides’ training about the royal visits in the town’s glorious past. It was due at 5 p.m. so I had time enough to walk around, taking some photos (I don’t recall how many do I have already!!!).

I went (as always) to the part of the town, which was once owned by the Dominican monks.

Of course, the monastery buildings do not exist anymore – due to the fact that the “liberation” in 1945 as well as “new organization of life” after the war left nothing but ruins, and empty quarters. Only few years ago the rebuilding of the once flourishing Hanseatic town started.

However the surroundings of the former Dominican monastery and church (now an art gallery…) is still awaiting its better time…

Below there some information about the place – which I translated from 
http://www.truso.republika.pl
 )

St. Mary’s Church

History of St. Mary’s Church Elblag is almost as old as the history of the city. As early as January 13 1238r. The Domestic Master  of the German Order – Hermann Balk issued a privilege allowing Dominicans to settle in Elblag. Therefore on April 24, 1246 – when Elbląg was grnated the Lübeck Law, the Dominicans were given permission to build a church and a monastery. The Dominicans were the only mendicant order, which received the privilege of settling in Elblag.

As in Gdansk, the monastery received an area on the edge of the city, in the north – western part. The church could have tower.

Construction of the chancel began in 1248. A temporary church and housing for the monks were built then.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the temple was expanded – receiving the two-aisle form. At that time, the chancel was  also modernized.

As early as the fourteenth century St. Mary’s Church received the shape – as seen today. From 1504 to 1514 (after a fire) some changes were made – the building was heightened.

Reformation was  approaching Elbląg from the West. The Dominicans started to lose their significance. In 1542r. the last two monks left the monastery. From that moment on – St. Mary’s Church became the main temple of the evangelical community in Elblag.

After the war it stood in complete ruins until 1959. Despite many requests it was not given to the Catholic community. Instead it was taken over by a group of artists who organized a Laboratory of Art “Gallery-El”. In 1980, again there rose an idea to hand the church over to the Catholics.

Again the idea returned in 1992. This caused a huge stir in the artistic community. Gallery-El for 30 years of its existence became famous in Poland and Europe. Currently, the building of the former church, as well as existing gallery within – are owned by the local government. It is a place of some art exhibitions, symphonic and jazz concerts, and sometimes entertainment events.

Of the rich furnishings of the church the high altar has survived in parts (now reconstructed), the altar of the Magi (both are in the St. Nicolas Cathedral), the altar of St. Lawrence (in Elbląg’s Archaeological-Historical Museum 
http://www.muzeum.elblag.pl/
), the altar of shoemakers apprentices (in the Cathedral) and the Renaissance pulpit of 1588, which since 1955 is in St. Nicolas Cathedral.

The walls of St. Mary’s Church, the floors, its inner and outer walls are decorated with epitaphs and tombstones of the most eminent families in Elblag. The crypts and right under the floor of the church there are the remains of monks and nobles – patrons of the church.

 It is worth noting that among them there are the remains of the English and Scottish merchants who were the representants of the Eastland Company. And…Unfortunately the place is not that optimistic as the above description might have suggested…

HERE are some photos I took today…

 

 

About Medieval Easter Traditions…

Easter is full of odd traditions when you stop to think about them for a moment—why do chocolate eggs come from rabbits, and what do they have to do with the resurrection of Jesus?–and predictably, a good deal of that is just because they’re so old we long since stopped paying attention to where they come from. There are plenty of other places on the internet that will talk about eggs and ancient pre-Christian fertility rites, but I’m just going to focus on the Middle Ages for now because let’s face it, that’s where I live.

The three days before Easter—Maundy Thursday (named for the command Jesus gave his disciples, and not, as I thought when I was little, just an oddly-named ‘Monday Thursday’), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday were called the Triduum, and medieval people would, unsurprisingly, spend a lot of these days in church. Easter was, as now, the most important festival in the Christian calendar, which is presumably why it needed forty days of fasting and preparation to get ready for (which in turn is part of why people were so excited for it).

Below is a link to this very interesting post about Medieval Easter Traditions. I am a keen follower of this blog, as it doesn’t have the “scientific boredom”

http://medievalisterrant.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/medieval-easter-traditions/

Scotland’s Queen – Saint Margaret

I am a great and dedicated fan of the Medievalists.net web site.
They publish a lot of interesting articles, which I would have never run into, because I wouldn’t even know where to search…

So when I found the below article, I read it with interest. Especially, that I also visited the Edinburgh castle, and also wondered who was St. Margaret of Scotland

enjoy the lecture.

http://www.medievalists.net/2013/03/26/saint-margaret-queen-of-scotland
/

My Lady the King's Mother: Guest post by The Henry Tudor Experience

Reblogged from Sarah's History:

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Today I am welcoming my fellow blogger and very good friend Hannah as a guest on Sarah's History. Hannah researches and writes blogs about Henry VII, Thomas Cromwell and general history, and today I am pleased to publish her post about Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, and mother of Henry VII. Over to you, Hannah!

-Lady Marga…

Read more… 2,329 more words

I just had to post this very interesting blog entry. It is a pity I did not know all this when visiting the Westminster Abbey.

A bit of Oliwa Cathedral

Oliwa Cathedral is one of Europe’s best kept secrets.

It is the longest post-cistercian church in the world (about 107 meters long)  with exquisite accoustics. And besides the marvelous pieces of art which can be seen HERE – the cathedral has a hit of the region – an exceptional organ. It has 7876 pipes, and 110 real voices (87 of which are in the main instrument,  and 14 in the cross-nave).

Whoever comes to Gdansk, even having vague information about the city – knows one – the Oliwa Cathedral is definitely MUST SEE, when in north Poland.

So HERE are some pictures as an appetizer, for those, who have never been here yet

An echoe of a Japanese visit

Some time ago, I had a pleasure to be guiding a group of Japanese journalists form a prestigious magazine. They came to Poland to write about the country and its possibilities of development.

 The publication is called Excellent Poland Rising Polska vol. 1. And it is printed on a high quality thick paper (“art-paper”), with beautiful photographs, and thorough information.

How do I know – if I do not know Japanese? Well – I have some friends who can read Japanese, and they told me

So I awaited at the Lech Walesa Airport for a group of three persons. They finally emerged from the arrivals – without their luggage, which probably circled the world somewhere between Japan and Poland… I thought it was not the best start, but suddenly the sun came out from among the clouds, and the day turned really beautiful.

Although my guests were quite tired, they did not want to have any rest, nor meal, as their schedule was quite packed with events and meetings. Besides they wanted to see Gdansk. And – they wanted to take some pictures for their future publication. So I promised, I would show them a very good spot to take extra photos of the city’s panorama.

After all the meetings, well after sunset I took them to the promised spot, where they could admire the view across the river Motława. One of the evening photos from this place that my guests took, can be found in the publication I have in my hands.  It really is beautiful.

The time of their visit came to an end, and after exchanging business cards, and I got a promise of a copy of this publication.

So yesterday when the postman brought a large envelope stamped in Japanese I was glad that they finished editing. Inside there awaited a great and a very pleasant surprise! My guests posted a picture of me.

Thus, I had to write this post – to simply show off, as I am very honored with being pictured in such a prestigious publication.

The colors of water – Gdańsk

Since childhood, I have always been fascinated with the colors of the water in the Baltic Sea. Whenever we were sailing to Gdansk – my Dad used to wake me up early in the morning, so that I would see how the Gulf of Gdansk changes colors. From grey, or blue-grey – to green, or brown-green, the colors were changing depending on the light or the time of day.

Today I took my camera and went to the beach to take some photos of the sea.  When I came there – the water was grey-blue. And in the far distance, on the horizon, I could see the dark shadows of heavy rain or a snow storm. The water there had the color of dark graphite. It was hard to say where the sea ended and where the sky started… And suddenly the colors changed. I stood amazed – when I saw green water, and the swans in a vivid contrast with it.

Indeed, I do understand why my Dad loved the sea so much